Rare Book Monthly

Articles - May - 2021 Issue

Forum Auctions Celebrating Five Years with 12 Sales Beginning May 6th Culminating with their 250th in July

Celebrating their 5th Year

Celebrating their 5th Year

Forum Auctions in July is soon celebrating their 5th anniversary and are conducting a series of sales – both online only and ‘traditional’ – over the course of the spring and into the early summer months to celebrate the achievement.  Their calendar of events, from now into July, is diverse and impressive:

 

Online Sale:  Books and Works on Paper

6th May

Online Sale:  Books and Works on Paper

19th May

Online Sale:  Images of Angling:  the David Beazley Collection of Angling

20th May

Prints and Editions

20th May

Prints and Editions

26th May

   

Only Banksy

1st June

Online Sale:  Travel Books, Maps and Atlases

9th June

Online Sale:  The Stephen White Space Collection

10th June

Online Sale:  Books and Works on Paper

24th June

   

Prints and Editions

5th July*

Only Banksy

6th July*

Signed and Inscribed:  A Gentleman’s Library of Modern Literature

7th July*

Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper

8th July*

 

Since 2016 the firm has pioneered a trading model intermeshing weekly timed online-only auctions with bi-monthly higher value 'traditional' sales.  The combination of these formats has proved popular with clients; swift turnaround times benefit sellers and the weekly revolving calendar provides buyers with an ever greater array of new items to bid on.

 

In July, almost exactly 5 years since their inaugural auction, Forum will hold their 250th auction and expect to record their 50,000th sold lot. Indeed, in December just past they reached a cumulative $63 million in auction sales for their first 4.5 years and are now regularly adding private treaty sales. Taken together, the firm's fresh goal as they approach their fifth anniversary is a new single year record -  $35,000,000 to be achieved as they celebrate their anniversary this summer.

 

From a standing start they have become a major player!

 

  • With so many sales, some scheduled dates may shift

 


Posted On: 2021-05-01 12:32
User Name: battledore

The original London founders of Bloomsbury Auctions (Lord John Kerr, Frank Hermann and David Stagg) might never have imagined in 1983 that their legacy would include both American and Rome salesrooms, the 2011 acquisition by Dreweatts at the helm, then Stanley Gibbons in 2013, and by 2017 their split and re-invention under the name Forum Auctions. Almost from the very beginning (1985) they employed Rupert Powell as a recent graduate seeking a job, gradually developing from junior cataloguer to Deputy Chairman, International Head of Books. For whichever auction house he worked, Rupert has elevated the standing and quality of lots being offered. He is considered one of the best specialist auctioneers in the English language, and with his entire team they are to be congratulated on this benchmark anniversary with best wishes for many more years of joint success.


Rare Book Monthly

  • Sotheby’s Geek Week
    14-15 July
    Sotheby’s, July 14: Henry De La Beche. "Awful Changes," 1830. $6,000 to $9,000.
    Sotheby’s, July 15: [Apollo 11]. Flight Plan, Complete Original Printing Signed by Buzz Aldrin. $5,000 to $8,000.
    Sotheby’s, July 15: Thomas Alva Edison. Documents Establishing and Ending the Edison Electric Railway Company. $20,000 to $30,000.
    Sotheby’s, July 15: Richard P. Feynman. Feynman's Lectures on Gravitation 1-16, Including the Original Transcriptions of Lectures 12-16 by Morinigo and Wagner, With Richard Feynman's Manuscript Notations, 1971. $12,000 to $18,000.
    Sotheby’s, July 15: [Apollo 9]. A Group of Manuals and Mission Documents used by Stuart Roosa as a member of the Astronaut Support Crew. $5,000 to $8,000.
    Sotheby’s, July 15: [BYTE: The Small Systems Journal]. A collection of early foundational issues of Byte: The Small Systems Journal, with rare hardcover editions. $5,000 to $8,000.
  • Forum Auctions
    The 10th Anniversary Sale
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    July 16, 2026
    Forum, July 16: Inundation papyrus. P.Michael 4, the ‘Inundation papyrus’, a geographical account of the Nile near Canopus, in Greek, remains of two columns from a manuscript scroll on papyrus, Egypt, second century CE. £12,000-18,000
    Forum, July 16: Book of Hours, use of Sarum, manuscript on vellum, 6 full-page miniatures, with famous Middle English inscriptions, Southern Netherlands for the English market, [c.1430]. £30,000-50,000
    Forum, July 16: Qu'ran, Arabic manuscript on burnished, stencilled, and gold-flecked paper, 447ff., Sultanate Gujarat, Ahmadabad, [after 1411 but no later than 1442]. £15,000-20,000
    Forum Auctions
    The 10th Anniversary Sale
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    July 16, 2026
    Forum, July 16: Turner (William). A New boke of the natures and properties of all wines that are commonly vsed here in England, rare first edition of the first English book on wine, By William Seres, 1568. £20,000-£30,000
    Forum, July 16: Spenser (Edmund). The Faerie Queene. first edition, Printed [by John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, 1590. £30,000-40,000
    Forum, July 16: Shakespeare (William). The Comedie of Errors, extracted from the first folio, Isaac Jaggard and Edward Blount, 1623. £15,000-20,000
    Forum Auctions
    The 10th Anniversary Sale
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    July 16, 2026
    Forum, July 16: Fleming (Ian). Casino Royale, first edition, signed presentation inscription from the author, 1953. £40,000-60,000
    Forum, July 16: d'Agoty (Jacques-Fabien Gautier). Anatomie de la Tête, first edition, Paris, chez le Sieur Gautier, 1748. £10,000-15,000
    Forum, July 16: Martial Arts.- Lee (Bruce). 'Praying Mantis style' Kung Fu book, containing numerous annotations, diagrams and graphs in Bruce Lee's hand, c. 1960. £50,000-70,000
    Forum Auctions
    The 10th Anniversary Sale
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    July 16, 2026
    Forum, July 16: Warre (Capt. Henry James). Sketches in North America and the Oregon Territory, first edition, rare hand-coloured issue, 1848. £30,000-40,000
    Forum, July 16: Norie (John William). The Marine Atlas, or Seaman's Complete Pilot for all the principal places in the known world..., 1826. £30,000-50,000
    Forum, July 16: Mao Tse-tung.- Kim Il-sung.-[Note book for visitors from China to Korea], signed by Mao and Kim, [Beijing, 1954]. £10,000-15,000

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